Amsterdam Law School Legal Studies Research Paper: Institute for Information Law Research Paper

Volume | Edition (Serie)

2015-46 | 2015-04

Document type

Working paper

Faculty

Faculty of Law (FdR)

Institute

Institute for Information Law (IViR)

Abstract

Open data are held to contribute to a wide variety of social and political goals, including strengthening transparency, public
participation and democratic accountability, promoting economic growth and innovation, and enabling greater public sector
efficiency and cost savings. However, releasing government data that contain personal information may threaten privacy and
related rights and interests. In this paper we ask how these privacy interests can be respected, without unduly hampering
benefits from disclosing public sector information. We propose a balancing framework to help public authorities address this
question in different contexts. The framework takes into account different levels of privacy risks for different types of
data. It also separates decisions about access and re-use, and highlights a range of different disclosure routes. A circumstance
catalogue lists factors that might be considered when assessing whether, under which conditions, and how a dataset can be
released. While open data remains an important route for the publication of government information, we conclude that it is
not the only route, and there must be clear and robust public interest arguments in order to justify the disclosure of personal
information as open data.

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